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Wednesday, March 2, 2016

MY COLLECTION #37), THE BLACK CAT BY LEE ELIAS

37) March 1, 2016

I’m taking a few days off from my
serialized posting of the original art pages to my uncollected 1994 graphic
novel, “The Mark In America” to post and blog about one of the highlights of my
collection, the complete set of all 9 pages of original artwork, by Lee Elias,
to “Banker’s Holiday”, starring the Black Cat. The story was first printed in
“Black Cat” #2, published by Harvey Comics in August/September 1946, reprinted
in “Black Cat” #10 (1948), and still later in “The Original Black Cat” #5,
published by Lorne-Harvey in 1991. These are pages #8 and 9.

After the ever-increasing
virtuosity of pages 1 through 7, pages 8 and 9 are disappointing. The ending 2
pages of this story feel perfunctory; the events on page 8 need at least one,
maybe two more pages to play out satisfactorily. Instead of a reprise and
resolution of the eye-popping splash panel, we get no horse, (except for those
of the posse’s, arriving in panel 1, then disappearing for the rest of the page)
no tree, no foiled lynching. Panel 2 doesn’t address the question of how Black
Cat got off the horse, untied her hands, etc, and is even indifferently drawn
(all 3 figure-groupings seem to be on different eye-levels). It feels to me
like a cheat, like all those “Superman” covers from the 60’s that relate only
tangentially to the actual stories within.

Actually, these two pages DO have
something going for them, uninspired as they are: Eye read. Elias is quite
masterful in his placement and posing of figures so that events seem to play
out effortless along the direction of left-to-right/ up-to-down eye read, both
within each panel and over the pages as wholes. This is equally true throughout
the rest of the story but is more noticeable on these 2 pages without the
distraction of the brilliant graphics, exquisite drawing, etc.

Quibbles aside, there are moments
of pleasure to be had:

Page #8 Panel #1: Nice dramatic
lighting on Rick and the posse, showing up just in time. It would have been
even nice if the shadows had been carried through onto Rick’s face; the current
treatment undercuts the cinematic-ness. One wonders if there was some sort of
editorial restriction on the placement of black shadows on main character’s
faces, especially in such a way as to hide their eyes.

1 comment:

Have you ever gotten the black and white Black cat reprints that Alfred Harvey put out? They are a gas. Recently, I just picked up the Australian Tarzan 19 published by K. G. Murray in Australia, and I learn that lee Elias did Tarzan according to the index penciling the first story called "The Diamond Belt." You may wish to check it out. It actually shows the first page from the story. Here is the link: http://ausreprints.net/content/main/?issue=31804